At the outset of the U.S. Civil War, Mathew Brady dispatched a team of photographers to document the conflict. Among them was a Scottish-born immigrant named Alexander Gardner, the photographer who took this photo of Lincoln at Antietam as well as other famous wartime shots. The man to Lincoln's right is Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, whom Lincoln had as head of a personal security detail during the war. Gardner titled another shot of Pinkerton and his brother William at Antietam “The Secret Service ...

The Japanese art of Ukiyo-e (“Pictures of the floating [or sorrowful] world”) developed in the city of Edo (now Tokyo) during the Tokugawa or Edo Period (1600-1868), a relatively peaceful era during which the Tokugawa shoguns ruled Japan and made Edo the seat of power. The Ukiyo-e tradition of woodblock printing and painting continued into the 20th century. This diptych print of between 1849 and 1852 shows Saigyō surrounded by men trying to prevent him from leaving his house to become a priest. The poet Saigyō (1118-90) was born into ...

This 1889 map of trans-Saharan trading routes by French explorer Edouard Blanc reflects the growing priority that Europeans gave to land-based trade during the late 19th-century imperial “scramble for Africa.” In articles about his work, Blanc stressed the importance of identifying “natural” geographic routes that would connect French colonial possessions in west Africa, such as Senegal, to Algeria in north Africa, and link the Mediterranean coast to Sudan and central Africa. Blanc based his maps not only on his own travels but also on nearly a century of reports from ...

Al-Zaura was the brainchild of the pro-Western, progressive Ottoman wali (governor) of Iraq, Midhat Pasha (reigned 1869–72). He established the newspaper when he brought with him from Paris a printing press, the first in Iraq, upon his assignment to Baghdad in 1869. Al-Zaura’s name was taken from a nickname for Baghdad, literally meaning a bend or curve, as the city sits within a wide bend of the Tigris River. The paper is arguably the most important source on Iraq’s history during the last 50 years of the ...

La cena de le Ceneri (The Ash Wednesday supper), the first of Giordano Bruno’s six Italian philosophical dialogues, was first published in London in 1584. The title page indicates neither the place of publication nor the publisher, but scholars agree that the book was printed at the London shop of John Charlewood. The work is dedicated to the French ambassador to the English court, Michel de Castelnau, sieur de la Mauvissière, who assisted Bruno after his arrival in London in 1583. The book is divided into five dialogues and ...

Mariano Eduardo de Rivero y Ustáriz (1798–1857) was a Peruvian scientist, geologist, mineralogist, chemist, archaeologist, politician, and diplomat. After schooling in Arequipa, he was sent in 1810 at age 12 to London to study mathematics, physics, and languages. In 1817 he traveled to France to the École royale des mines de Paristo study mineralogy and chemistry. In France he met Joseph Louis Proust, Gay-Lussac, and Alexander von Humboldt. The latter became his mentor and, during the course of his travels in Europe, Rivero discovered a new iron-oxalate that ...

This book, published in Kiev in 1895, is a short biography of Ivan Fyodorov (circa 1510–83), intended for the general reader. Along with Schweipolt Fiol and Francysk Skaryna, Fyodorov was one of the fathers of printing in the East Slavic region. He graduated from Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, and later worked in Moscow, where he published liturgical works using movable type, the first books printed in Russia. He was driven from Moscow by scribes who feared competition from his innovation and fled to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

This book is a compilation of articles about the famed Kiev-Mezhyhirya Earthenware Factory, which was part of the 10th-century Mezhyhirya Monastery. The factory was founded at the end of the 18th century and produced such quantities of faience that by the mid-19th century it was the largest industrial enterprise in Kiev. The first part of the book is dedicated to the history of the factory, and includes details and illustrations of the wide range of its products, both decorative pieces and more practical ones. The factory hallmarks (seals) are shown ...

Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi (1866–1934) was a professor of history and a leading political figure in Ukraine, who served as chairman of the Ukrainian Central Council at the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917. This work, published in 1912, is devoted to the national and cultural movement of Ukraine in the 16th and 17th centuries and the formation of a Ukrainian national consciousness. Much of the book deals with relations between Ukraine and Poland and their effect on the formation of a Ukrainian state. The author describes a decline ...

This booklet is by Nikolai Makarenko, a specialist in architecture, art history, and archaeology and later director of the Kiev Museum of Arts. He begins by reflecting on the beneficial effects of Cossack culture on southern Russia and its significant impact on Ukrainian culture. He praises 17th- and 18th-century style and describes Pokrovskaia Church as an example of beautiful and pure architecture. The church was built in 1764 by Pyotr Kalishevski in Romny, Poltavskaia Province, and later moved to the city of Poltava. A new church was built in Romny ...

This work is devoted to one of the most important and beautifully decorated East Slavic manuscripts, the Peresopnytsia Gospel created in the mid-16th century, partly at the Monastery of the Mother of God in Peresopnytsia, Volyn, and partly at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity near L’viv, both in present-day Ukraine. The present book, by Alexander Gruzinskii, covers the history of the gospel, its ornamentation, and graphics. The first part focuses on the origin of the Peresopnytsia manuscript, which was rediscovered in 1830s by Slavist scholar Osip Bodjanskij. The ...

This collection of portraits of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809–52) was published under the auspices of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature for the centenary of the birth of Gogolʹ, a Ukrainian-born Russian playwright, novelist, and writer of short stories. The book is divided into two parts: an annotated list of the known portraits of the writer on pages 3–15, followed by reproductions of each portrait. The portraits trace Gogol’s life in chronological order, from 1827 before he was well known, until his death in Moscow in ...

This 1890 guidebook provides comprehensive information for visitors to Kiev. It includes a history of the city and details of places of interest, such as Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the cathedrals and other churches, historical monuments, public gardens and wooded areas, public and administrative buildings, and bridges over the Dnieper River. Included is useful information for travelers, such as timetables for trains, steamships, and other passenger transport and a directory for hotels, restaurants, doctors, banks, stores, baths, libraries, clubs, and city and church authorities. The guide anticipates by 24 years Baedeker’s ...

Saint Vladimir’s Cathedral in Kiev was constructed in 1862–96 to mark the 900th anniversary of the conversion to Christianity of Kievan Rus by Prince Vladimir (or Volodymyr) Sviatoslavich, later known as Saint Vladimir the Great (circa 956–1015). A note from the publisher of this book states that publications describing Saint Vladimir’s Cathedral had mostly received rapturous reviews from readers, but that some readers were critical of the cathedral’s design and decorations. The purpose of this book, according to the note, was to provide readers with ...

In the summer of 1918, Ivan Ogienko (1882–1972), a Ukrainian scientist and political, public, and ecclesiastical figure, became a founder and the first president of Kam'ianets'-Podil's'kyi state university (subsequently renamed after him). He later gave a course of lectures on Ukrainian culture at the university, on which this book is based. Part I concerns the history of the culture until the 17th century. It describes the territory of Ukraine, along with song, epic (Cossack) poems and other major literary works, the language, and architecture. Also ...

Mikhail Vrubelʹ (1856–1910) was a Russian painter known for his unusual style, which synthesized elements of native Russian art with Western and Byzantine influences. Born in Omsk to a Polish father and a Russian mother, he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1874 to study law. He abandoned his legal studies and in 1880 entered the Academy of Fine Arts. In a career cut short by mental illness and blindness, Vrubelʹ produced a body of work that included church murals and mosaics, book illustrations, stage sets, watercolors, and oil paintings ...

This manuscript is the only known copy of a journal believed to have been written on board ship during Vasco da Gama’s first voyage to India. The lost original of the journal most often has been attributed to Álvaro Velho, who accompanied Vasco da Gama to India in 1497−99, but who did not return to Portugal with the expedition but remained for eight years in Gambia and Guinea. The manuscript is anonymous and undated, but paleographic analysis dates it to the first half of the 16th century. The ...

The school drama is a theatrical form that developed in Ukraine in the 17th and 18th centuries. Students would perform plays written by their teachers as a way of receiving religious instruction and studying the principles of drama. The genre was said to have developed from the dialogic verse of the Christmas and Easter cycles that were popular in Western Europe beginning in the 12th and 13th centuries and that spread to Ukraine in the late 16th–early 17th centuries. This book is a 1912 edition of a Jesuit school ...

Bukovina is a region in southeastern Europe that is today partly in Ukraine and partly in Romania. Between 1775 and 1918 it was ruled by the Austrian Empire. It was annexed by Romania after World War I and divided between the Soviet Union and Romania after World War II. This book is a collection of song lyrics, gathered in the second half of the 19th century by the Bukovina journalist, anthropologist, and public figure Hryhoriĭ Kupchanko (1849–1902) for the Southwestern Department of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society. The selection ...

This work by Ukrainian literary critic, writer, and translator Ivan Steshenko is the first volume of a projected multivolume history of the Ukrainian theater. The volume is in five chapters. The first covers general conceptual and historical issues, such as the rise of the theater and the transformation of ancient cult rituals into performances. The second chapter covers Latin-Germanic and Slavonic folk rites and their content. The third chapter discusses drama as a means for the dissemination of Christianity in Ukraine. The fourth chapter provides information about the development of ...

Mikola Kindratovich Voroniy (1871–1938) was a prominent Ukrainian poet, writer, actor, and director. This book is a collection of his most important articles on the art of the theater and dramatic literature. The topics covered include the work of actors and directors, dramatic literature as the most complex genre of literary and artistic expression, and the nature and role of the audience. The author draws general conclusions from his analysis and discusses the ways in which the theater might develop in the future. Voroniy received his university education in ...

Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubelʹ (1856–1910) was a Russian painter known for his unusual style that synthesized elements of native Russian art with Western and Byzantine influences. Born in Omsk to a Polish father and a Russian mother, he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1874 to study law. He abandoned his legal studies and in 1880 entered the Academy of Fine Arts. In a career cut short by mental illness and blindness, Vrubelʹ produced a body of work that included church murals and mosaics, book illustrations, stage sets, watercolors, and oil ...

Joan Vinckeboons (1617–70) was a Dutch cartographer and engraver born into a family of artists of Flemish origin. He was employed by the Dutch West India Company and for more than 30 years produced maps for use by Dutch mercantile and military shipping. He was a business partner of Joan Blaeu, one of the most important map and atlas publishers of the day. Vinckeboons drew a series of 200 manuscript maps that were used in the production of atlases, including Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. This 1639 pen-and-ink and watercolor ...

Joan Vinckeboons (1617–70) was a Dutch cartographer and engraver born into a family of artists of Flemish origin. He was employed by the Dutch West India Company and for more than 30 years produced maps for use by Dutch mercantile and military shipping. He was a business partner of Joan Blaeu, one of the most important map and atlas publishers of the day. Vinckeboons drew a series of 200 manuscript maps that were used in the production of atlases, including Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. This pen-and-ink and watercolor map ...

Joan Vinckeboons (1617–70) was a Dutch cartographer and engraver born into a family of artists of Flemish origin. He was employed by the Dutch West India Company and for more than 30 years produced maps for use by Dutch mercantile and military shipping. He was a business partner of Joan Blaeu, one of the most important map and atlas publishers of the day. Vinckeboons drew a series of 200 manuscript maps that were used in the production of atlases, including Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. This pen-and-ink and watercolor map ...

Joan Vinckeboons (1617–70) was a Dutch cartographer and engraver born into a family of artists of Flemish origin. He was employed by the Dutch West India Company and for more than 30 years produced maps for use by Dutch mercantile and military shipping. He was a business partner of Joan Blaeu, one of the most important map and atlas publishers of the day. Vinckeboons drew a series of 200 manuscript maps that were used in the production of atlases, including Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. This pen-and-ink and watercolor map ...

Joan Vinckeboons (1617–70) was a Dutch cartographer and engraver born into a family of artists of Flemish origin. He was employed by the Dutch West India Company and for more than 30 years produced maps for use by Dutch mercantile and military shipping. He was a business partner of Joan Blaeu, one of the most important map and atlas publishers of the day. Vinckeboons drew a series of 200 manuscript maps that were used in the production of atlases, including Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. This pen-and-ink and watercolor map ...

Joan Vinckeboons (1617–70) was a Dutch cartographer and engraver born into a family of artists of Flemish origin. He was employed by the Dutch West India Company and for more than 30 years produced maps for use by Dutch mercantile and military shipping. He was a business partner of Joan Blaeu, one of the most important map and atlas publishers of the day. Vinckeboons drew a series of 200 manuscript maps that were used in the production of atlases, including Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. This pen-and-ink and watercolor map ...

Joan Vinckeboons (1617–70) was a Dutch cartographer and engraver born into a family of artists of Flemish origin. He was employed by the Dutch West India Company and for more than 30 years produced maps for use by Dutch mercantile and military shipping. He was a business partner of Joan Blaeu, one of the most important map and atlas publishers of the day. Vinckeboons drew a series of 200 manuscript maps that were used in the production of atlases, including Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. This pen-and-ink and watercolor map ...

Joan Vinckeboons (1617–70) was a Dutch cartographer and engraver born into a family of artists of Flemish origin. He was employed by the Dutch West India Company and for more than 30 years produced maps for use by Dutch mercantile and military shipping. He was a business partner of Joan Blaeu, one of the most important map and atlas publishers of the day. Vinckeboons drew a series of 200 manuscript maps that were used in the production of atlases, including Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. This pen-and-ink and watercolor map ...

Joan Vinckeboons (1617–70) was a Dutch cartographer and engraver born into a family of artists of Flemish origin. He was employed by the Dutch West India Company and for more than 30 years produced maps for use by Dutch mercantile and military shipping. He was a business partner of Joan Blaeu, one of the most important map and atlas publishers of the day. Vinckeboons drew a series of 200 manuscript maps that were used in the production of atlases, including Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. This pen-and-ink and watercolor map ...

Joan Vinckeboons (1617–70) was a Dutch cartographer and engraver born into a family of artists of Flemish origin. He was employed by the Dutch West India Company and for more than 30 years produced maps for use by Dutch mercantile and military shipping. He was a business partner of Joan Blaeu, one of the most important map and atlas publishers of the day. Vinckeboons drew a series of 200 manuscript maps that were used in the production of atlases, including Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. This pen-and-ink and watercolor map ...

Joan Vinckeboons (1617–70) was a Dutch cartographer and engraver born into a family of artists of Flemish origin. He was employed by the Dutch West India Company and for more than 30 years produced maps for use by Dutch mercantile and military shipping. He was a business partner of Joan Blaeu, one of the most important map and atlas publishers of the day. Vinckeboons drew a series of 200 manuscript maps that were used in the production of atlases, including Blaeu’s Atlas Maior. This circa 1639 map of ...

This hand-colored pen-and-ink manuscript map was drawn by Antonio de Ulloa (1716–95) in 1735, based on an earlier map by Juan de Herrera dating from around 1721. It shows in great detail the bay of Cartagena de Indias and the adjacent coastal area of the present-day city of Cartagena, Colombia. The territory was then part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada in the Spanish Empire. The map is oriented by a compass rose with north pointing to the left. Longitude is set in relation to the Royal Astronomical Observatory ...

This 18th-century manuscript map shows the plan of Morro Castle, located at the entrance of Havana Bay, Cuba. The fortress was built by the Spaniards, starting in 1585. The Italian military engineer Battista Antonelli (1547–1616) was commissioned to design the fortifications. The structure originally was conceived as a small fort surrounded by a dry moat, but it was expanded and rebuilt on several occasions and became a major fortress of great strategic importance for the island. The map is oriented with north to the left and tilted up at ...

This magnificent map of the Philippine archipelago, drawn by the Jesuit Father Pedro Murillo Velarde (1696–1753) and published in Manila in 1734, is the first and most important scientific map of the Philippines. The Philippines were at that time a vital part of the Spanish Empire, and the map shows the maritime routes from Manila to Spain and to New Spain (Mexico and other Spanish territory in the New World), with captions. In the upper margin stands a great cartouche with the title of the map, crowned by the ...

Islario general de todas las islas del mundo (General atlas of all the islands in the world) is the greatest work by Seville cosmographer Alonso de Santa Cruz (1505–67). The atlas was begun during the reign of Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain Charles V and finished in that of his son King Philip II, to whom it was dedicated. It consists of 111 maps representing all the islands and peninsulas of the world, and showing all the discoveries made by European explorers from 1400 to the mid-16th ...

This manuscript atlas by Joan Martines, cosmographer to King Philip II of Spain, dated 1587, represents the combination of two cartographic schools that existed at the time of its creation. The older one was the traditional school of Majorca, which specialized in decorative portolan maps that by this time were obsolete with regard to the geographic information they conveyed. The newer one was the cartographic school of the Low Countries, which applied Renaissance principles and used different forms of cartographic representation based on new concepts in astronomy, mathematics, and geography ...

Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyá al-Wansharīsī (1430 or 1431–1508) was a jurist and scholar of the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence. He was born in Jabal Wansharīs, but his family moved when he was a child to nearby Tilimcen in present-day western Algeria, where he studied and later taught Maliki law. His relationship with Tilimcen ruler Sultan Muhammad IV of the Banu Abd al-Wad dynasty soured under circumstances that are unclear, and he consequently fled to Fez, Morocco. With the help of his former student Muhammad ibn al-Gardīs, al-Wansharīsī was able ...

Aḥmad ibn ʻAbd al-Laṭīf ibn Aḥmad al-Bashbīshī (1631–85) was an Islamic jurist of the Shāfiʻī school of jurisprudence. He was born and died in the village of Bashbīsh in the region of Al-Mahalla in the Nile delta of Egypt. He studied Islamic jurisprudence in Cairo and taught at the Cairo-based Al-Azhar Mosque, long considered the foremost institution in the Islamic world for the study of Sunni theology. Al-Tuhfa al-Saniyya bi Ajwibat al-Masaa’il al-Mardhiyya (The luminous treasure with acceptable answers to matters of faith) is a collection of writings ...

This work is an elaboration of the commentary written by the Egyptian mathematician Sibṭ al-Māridīnī—i.e., a commentary on another commentary—on the urjūzah (versified introduction) to the science of algebra, originally composed by the Berber mathematician and man of letters Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd-Allāh al-Ishbīlī al-Marrakushī, also known as Ibn al-Yāsamīn, who died in 1204 (600 AH). Al-Yāsamīn summarized his mathematical knowledge in a versified treatise known as the Yāsamīnīyya (The treatise by al-Yāsamīn). Around the end of the 15th century, al-Yāsamīn’s verses were the object of a ...

Historia general de las cosas de nueva España (General history of the things of New Spain) is an encyclopedic work about the people and culture of central Mexico compiled by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–1590), a Franciscan missionary who arrived in Mexico in 1529, eight years after completion of the Spanish conquest by Hernan Cortés. Commonly called the Florentine Codex, the manuscript came into the possession of the Medici no later than 1588 and is now in the Medicea Laurenziana Library in Florence. Sahagún began conducting research into indigenous ...